Germany’s highest court on Friday lifted the ban on headscarves for teachers, correcting a 2003 verdict. It follows an appeal made by two female Muslim teachers from Northrhine-Westfalia.
The verdict now reads that the headscarf can only be banned if the peaceful situation at the school is in danger – for example if parents are protesting against it.
The court ruled that as Christian symbols are still allowed by many regional school laws, headscarves should not be banned, Euronews reported.
The press statement for the verdict appeared prematurely on the constitutional court’s website before being taken down, but not before German paper Taz had a good read and published most of the details.
The decision relates to a school in the Northern Rhine region where teachers had sought the ban “as it undermined state neutrality and had sought to have the hijab banned.”
The Federal Court with this decision revised the 2003 decision that was based on the case of Stuttgart teacher Fereshta Ludin who filed a lawsuit in 1998 when she applied for a teaching position but Baden-Wurttemberg’s minister of culture refused her admission into school teaching, arguing that teachers in Germany had to remain neutral towards pupils in matters of religion and faith.
